New Mexico AG is asking $5000 to Google for violating UPA
Google is facing lawsuit because of allegedly using its Education Platform for gathering the personal information and private data from students below thirteen.
On the Google’s Education Platform, United States schools are offered free Google Chrome books and access to the G suite for Education service. The service provides users’ access to Gmail, Classroom, online word processing and presentation applications to do schoolwork, homework, communicate with teachers and submit assignments.
COPPA or Children’s Online Privacy Protection Act says online platforms are required to get the parental consent of children under 13 before allowing them to use their service or gather information about them.
A lawsuit filed by New Mexico Attorney General Hector Balderas states that the Google is allegedly attempting to bypass the law through Google Education in order to mine the data of the students:
“Outside of its Google Education platform, Google forbids children under the age of 13 in the United States from having their own Google accounts. But Google attempts to get around this by using Google Education to secretly gain access to troves of information about New Mexican children that it would not otherwise have,”
Google, in spite of assuring a number of times that it would protect children’s privacy, has used the Google’s Education platform to spy on the following data:
- their locations;
- visited websites;
- searched items
- watched YouTube videos;
- contact lists;
- voice recordings;
- saved passwords;
- and other behavioral information.
Google Spoke person said on this:
“These claims are factually wrong. G Suite for Education allows schools to control account access and requires that schools obtain parental consent when necessary. We do not use personal information from users in primary and secondary schools to target ads. School districts can decide how best to use Google for Education in their classrooms and we are committed to partnering with them”
The New Mexico AG is now asking $5000 for the violating the UPA or Unfair Practices Act of the Mexico.
